Saviors (working title) post 2

2.

Each extractor that was put online would inevitably help another team. We wanted to help and had the capability to do so. The extra cash didn’t hurt either. The first few jobs paid for most of the initial cost and we could do it cheaper than any of the large foundries.

Looking back, it was nice to see the community rally around a central idea and pursue it with vigor. I wish someone would have stopped and thought about the long term, though. Granted, none of us would have listened. The problems that arose were serious. Some of them happened rapidly. Others took years to take root, or for us to notice.

The earthquakes didn’t seem abnormal initially. Places like California always had the occasional massive quake. It wasn’t until they started happening in odd places that people took notice. When entire farms were swallowed and turned into freshly plowed mountains. We started to take notice.

When we woke to face our own mortality, we couldn’t ignore it.

I bolted upright in a daze, but could feel that something was wrong. I’m not sure I can really explain the sense of fear and dread properly. The best example I can come up with is walking through a store with your child, who you know is right beside you and then you realize that they aren’t. You look around and don’t see them. That dread you feel as you are suddenly panicked and looking for them is about as close as I can describe. It is immediate, instinctual, and complete. Your mind starts trying to rationalize the situation and set everything right in your world, only none of it adds up properly. It’s not the next door neighbors setting off bombs and mortars. It’s your entire world crumbling around you. It’s not your kids slamming the cupboards while making breakfast, but your whole house dancing to the staccato rhythm of the mega earth drum. Which, by the way, you helped create.

At that moment though, I didn’t think about any of those things that hindsight puts into perfect focus. I had a select set of goals:

Find my wife? Done. Sitting in the bed right beside me with a confused and terrified look.

Find my kids? I heard them running down the hallway screaming, toward my room. Sounded like three voices, all accounted for.

Cower in fear and hope to make it out? Easy. Do nothing and hope for everything.

As the minutes crawled on, we started to feel a little safer. The house was, so far, remaining in one piece. The occupants and possessions were shaken, but no one was damaged yet.

Saviors(working title) post 1

We were trying to save the world.

Forward:

The democratization of everything. Information. Media. Government. We believed that when given enough information, people would naturally make the right choices. In some cases, it worked. Pharmaceutical companies had to compete with home based bio hackers. Prices fell, quality and ingenuity went up. There was real competition, not lobbyists pandering to their government whores.

In other cases it was a shit show. With new innovations came new problems. We always heard the phrase, “unknown unknowns.” In other words, you don’t know what you don’t know. We thought we knew what it meant. We thought we had thought through our plans enough. In the end, we learned how important those unknowns can become. Even with something innocuous, the repercussions can be overwhelming.

We called ourselves makers.

We wanted to make the world a better place.

We destroyed it.

1.

It was a Wednesday. I don’t know if it actually was, but it makes me feel better to put a day to the event. At the time, nobody foresaw what would happen. It was just another breakthrough. A major one, granted, but still just a breakthrough.

A research team out of Australia had been working for years on extracting magma directly for digital fabrication. In other words, 3d printing, but instead of using plastic filament, they were using raw materials from the core of the earth.

When they announced their project, we all chuckled and thought ”man that would be cool.” Direct access to untold amount of iron, titanium, aluminum, etc. It was the dream. It could be processed into ingots and used in traditional manufacturing processes, but with the advances in 3d printing with individual atoms, the scope became so much larger. As the printers became faster, larger, and more capable, the face of manufacturing would change.

When the day came, we were stunned. They had done it. We also started to see how expensive it would be for anyone to replicate their results alone.

Where we were limited by raw materials on the surface, relatively speaking, there was an almost endless supply that we had never been able to tap. The team was trying to open the gates. After a decade, they did. They also open-sourced all of the research and information that they had gathered. It was free to anyone who had the money, time and skill to duplicate it.

At first only the large corporations and universities pursued replicating the technology. The average maker could only dream about the printers or extractors. Some people even went back to school for another degree to gain access.

As more people put their eyes on it, changes happened. People found ways to make it simpler, cheaper, easier. It would never be cheap, but they managed to get it into the realm of possibility for smaller groups of makers to pool their resources and build up the infrastructure.

A decade after the first dissemination of information, we were decentralized and making.

I still remember the day that our extractor came online. It was a Wednesday as well. We finished plugging all the parts together. Checking and double checking the code. Making sure all the fittings and insulation were tight. One leak or major malfunction could end our dreams, if not our lives.

Our hackerspace was in an old warehouse. It wasn’t pretty, and barely had a roof. It had walls, and more importantly, lots of power. The windows were still intact, and blacked out. Prying eyes weren’t a huge concern.

Part of the innovation was a smallish sonic drilling rig no bigger than a fullsize pickup truck. It didn’t need to be large as the vibration was the magical part of the recipe. The vibration was setup in such a way that it would essentially make a fluidized solid of the debris it was drilling through. The fluidized powder also had relatively low friction, as long as we didn’t stop the vibration.

It could load 10 foot drill rods made of refractory metals. It would take 528 rods to drill a mile. We had to go at least 5 miles, maybe more.

After months of drilling, we made it through. 8.5 miles deep and we were into the mantel. We were ready to hook up the pump, connect our processing station, and turn it on.

“We ready for this?” I asked.

A few nervous grunts returned. It was as good as could be hoped for under the circumstances. In the recent years, 3 groups had failed to get their extractors running properly. Two groups had component failures that destroyed the extractor pump. One group ended up with a leak and spilled magma across their work space. The latter group all died in the resulting fire and lava flow. We all knew the risks, but it was still a moral shaking day for the movement.

“Hit it.”

The emergency stop was disengaged. The pulsing green power button was pressed and grew to a solid glow. The only sound was that of a small fan cooling the cpu on the control computer.

After a minuter that stretched eternity, a low throbbing began in the machine. It sounded like the bass beat from a rave buried a hundred feet underground. No treble to be heard, this machine was all about that bass.

The status window showed all green. No errors or issues. Now it was just a waiting game. Imagine sucking molasses through a 100 foot straw. That was essentially equivalent, in a very non-scientific way. It’s probably a good enough analogie to visualize the slow and painstaking process.

Eventually a slow snake of magma started to emerge from the extractor outlet. It wasn’t fast, but it would be enough.

We had a large crucible stationed under the outlet. As it slowly filled, we let out a collective breath. It was working. After a few more hours of extraction we started the shutdown procedure. This involved back purging the suction line. If any of the magma cooled and hardened in the line, we would have to drill a new hole. A process which we had neither the time, money, nor inclination to take on.

After an hour the line was purged and the machine was shut down. We were all exhausted and horribly excited. We left to get some food and speak in hushed tones about our dreams for the future and the miracles we would unleash upon the world. How we would change it. How we would make it better.

Looking back now, I guess even accomplishing one out of two didn’t look so bad.

Let's write again.

I'm starting to write again, so I will be posting my chunks of text on here. Feel free to share anything you like. All I ask is for a referral back to here. As always I'm open to comments and suggestions. Just remember that all of this is posted as I write it. It is unedited and will probably certainly contain random errors of grammar, spelling, and continuity.



With that being said, enjoy.
-Dustin-

E-Cigarettes! or, the ultimate in Vapor ware.

(Image copyright of somebody, but not me. Ruyan china i think)

So... Many of you that know me, know that i am a smoker. I enjoy smoking, but i know it is bad for me.

My friend Mike was stumbling along the internet and came across a product that neither of us had ever seen. This device was being hailed as the healthy way to smoke. Here is how it works and why i think it is awesome.

The image above is someone smoking an e-cigarette. He isn't really smoking at all, but inhaling and exhaling vapor. basically there is nicotine in a water and propylene glycol solution.

The solution is head up by an atomizer which is somewhat like a really hot piece of steel wool. the Atomizer vaporizes the solution which then looks like smoke.

The vapor is inhaled and then exhaled. A smoker gets the nicotine and the tactile feel of a cigarette.

I won't lie and say that it is identical to a normal cigarette, but i think it is a very close approximation. Cost isn't too bad once you buy the e-cig. there are refill cartridges that are required, but can be sourced very cheaply.

Here are a few sites to check out if you want more info for yourself or your friends.

e-cigarette-forum.com
This site is the resource for all things e-cig. This is just a big group of users who are ready and willing to help each other out. If you are interested, i highly recommend going here and reading up.

Below are all distributors. njoy and crown7 are both in the USA. I bought from Njoy and have been very happy. fast shipping and great support.
njoy.com
crown7.com
e-cig.com

Feel free to ask anything.

Cheers,
-Dusty-

I need to start doing updates again.

None of this will be writing related.

So... Life... Love it... Hate it... It's all the same...

I've been doing wedding photography as an apprentice for a little while now and am looking for a studio to call my home for the 9-5. I just need to get on with life.

I'm about to revise "Frank" for the last time. I printed it all up, but have yet to read any of it. Once i get off of my ass and get it revised, i think i will try to get it published finally. I don't know if it is any good, i would like to think so, but it is really hard to critique my own writing and believe it is amazing.

All of the stuff i wrote last month will just sit around for a long while until i have the time and courage to actually read it again. I don't think it was anything amazing, but then again, who knows.

Anyway, Just figured i should start updating my blogs and what not.

Cheers,
-Dusty-

I’m Done!!!! if you are reading this, scroll down to day 25 to get the ending of the story

With the sun setting earlier in the horizon it becomes very hard to gauge the time. I know there have been many nights when i looked up at the clock to discover that it was 4:40 in the morning. Those mornings were good. It meant that i had busted ass and poured my heart onto the page.

Then there were the times that i looked up and it was 8:15 in the evening. I was already exhausted and had probably only written a few words. Those are the days that i loathed.

Regardless, i pushed on, even when i felt that there was nothing to talk about. Nothing interesting to say. Story line really made no sense. And here i am. I don’t know if any of those things were corrected, but in a few months when i sit down to read my book, with a fresh pair of eyes, hopefully i can correct any of my mental lapses.

So any of you who have been following my progress, i just want to say thanks. comment my blogs. Let me know if it was worth doing in the way i did. I would have written the book, but believing that people were expecting, or demanding, and update every night ensured that i would sit down, even if it was only for 5 minutes, and write.

So thanks. I’m gonna go recover for a while before i start my next venture.

Until then,
Cheers.
-Dusty-

Day 25 (goal met. Ending posted. Enjoy)

2.

Skip back a few years to where this all began. To where everything started. A few years after Pyro was born, and a few years before he went to war. A few years after his parents died. About the time he was going to his second foster home.

Foster care was not a good fit for him. He was a normal rambunctious youth, except for a few oddities that he had. Up to that point he had managed to keep most things secret. There was a reason for his going to a second foster home. The first one he lived at had been nice. The married couple that ran it were great, but some of the invalid youth that they took in were not agreeable to Pyro’s way of life. To his views. After spending a year with these children, he was tired. He was tired of people trying to bully him around. Tired of being picked on. They had no idea the power that brewed inside him, and he wanted to keep it that way.

His parent’s had known about his “special” abilities and had taught him, or at least tried to, not to use it. Not here or there. Not ever. If he was going to be a fully functional adult, then he would just have to play the game and act normal. There were a few exceptions that they allowed though. For his birthday, after the lighter was found dead in the bottom of a drawer, they did let him light the cake. Lacking fine control of his fire, he managed to set the candles, cake, and tablecloth on fire. His dad had been smart enough to have the fire extinguisher handy so the blaze was easily contained. Versus letting him practice in the back yard and hone his skills, they banned it’s use all together. He tried his hardest to abide by their rules, even after they had passed.

Jump back to the first foster home. He was frustrated. Very angry. All alone. Worst of all, tormented. He didn’t feel that he had any other way out of the hell he had been placed into. He didn’t feel good about taking matters into his own hands, but felt he had no other choice. What happened that day was not what he was expecting, nor what he had really wanted.

Pyro was not a stupid kid, but he did have some lofty ideas. He figured that if his room was not functional, then they would have no other choice, but to move him somewhere else. The hope being that he would be moved to another house. He didn’t know at the time, but the house had aluminum wiring. This would come into play later, not that anyone would have believed a young boy had set the place ablaze with his mind.

He ate his dinner. Brushed his teeth. Went to bed. Everything was normal. As his foster parents turned out the lights and said “good night.” He replied and settled into his bed. About 15 minutes later, he knew what had to be done. He started very small. He wanted to be careful. He already knew that things could get out of control if he didn’t pay attention.

A golf ball sized orb rose from his hand and hovered. He stared at it and tried to slowly manipulate it. He was pretty successful for not having done any of this in quite some time. It would pulsate and shoot little, unexpected bolts on occasion, but overall he was handling it quite nicely. After thinking about life for a while, he knew that there was no reason to destroy the whole house, just his room.

He waited until everyone was asleep and slowly looked for the best location to mount the attack. There was a outlet toward the center of the wall across from his bed. That would be the place. He wanted it to look natural. He wanted no extra suspicion cast his way. He got up and plugged in a small wall transformer. It had probably come from one of his toys, but he wasn’t sure which. He assumed that it would appear that the wiring had suddenly burst in to flames, and he’d have no query coming his way.

Sitting on top of his bed he did have a slight lapse of commitment, but it quickly passed and he hurdled a little bit of fire from his hand. The ball struck the direct center of the transformer and spread like, well, wildfire. It grew in great strides. Pyro suddenly realized that this might not work in the way he had envisioned it. Now he was worried about burning everything else down, but there was not much to do about it now. The flames were on autopilot.

He had already learned that fire didn’t hurt him so he curled up under the covers and waited for someone to come banging on the door. He didn’t want to arouse suspicion. By the time someone tried to come to his rescue, it would have been to late. If he had been a normal boy, ho would’ve been a very over cooked steak.

Everyone thought it was a miracle that he had made it out alive. His doorway collapsed, along with parts of the roof, as the firemen pulled him out. The firemen were heroes. He had been “Saved,” but he didn’t feel any different. The foster mom was a Jesus freak. She took it all as a sign that he needed to be moving on. She wished that he could stay, but there was just something telling her that it was a bad idea. So with that, he moved on through the system. He would’ve packed his bags, but all of his things had been burnt. Even his nice metal watch had melted into the foundation. So off he went to a new family. A new set of rules. A new life.

3.

Pyro made it to the new house. He was the only child being watched here. The couple reminded him of what he imagined his grandparent’s would have been like. They were older an older couple. Very sweet and understanding. The kind of household he needed to be raised in. They had their odd things as well. He had never been forced to remove his shoes at the door of any house before, but it was a requirement here. But, all in all, things were looking good.

After a year, he had gotten into the routine and it finally started to feel like home. It was a feeling that he had forgotten. It felt good. He was calm and in control of his life, at least as much as a young child can be anyway.

He had changed schools twice since his parents died. Each new house carried that baggage with it. It didn’t bother him much though. He just looked at it as another chance to make new friends. HE only had one real friend at his first school. He just always seemed to play the role of the outcast too perfectly.

The second school he attended was much worse. Shadier neighborhood. Meaner kids. Nobody that really took an interest in him. He was lonely. He did try very hard, but wondered if that was the problem. He couldn’t see changing for anyone’s acceptance, so he just did what he always did. He went to school as an invisible boy. It did afford him the time and ability to study and do well in the subjects he was interested in. Geography was one of those blessed sections.

At the time he had no idea that the makeup of the world would play a vital role in his life. He just new that it was interesting. Social Sciences were intriguing as well. The fact that there were so many different cultures excited him. He hoped that someday he could see them in person. Unknown to him was the fact that a few years later he would see all of them first hand. From the third world countries, to the superpowers that controlled everything. He was receiving the lessons that would make a major contribution to his life. He knew none of this at the time, nor did he ever think about it years later.

The third school was a new beast all together. A private school. He didn’t get the concept, or the need, but attended it all the same. The teachers here were much more attentive to his yearning for knowledge. He was so pushy at times that the teacher were a little scared of him, not that he had done anything to frighten, just that he was very insistent.

After a few months of recess, with no friends to show for it, he found a teacher who was willing to continue his lessons. He didn’t see the need to go run around like an idiot when all he would do was sit around and stare at people. This teacher would instill a desire to succeed that would follow Pyro for the rest of his life. He really liked the teacher. The teacher just felt sorry for Pyro. Sympathy was a powerful tool that he also learned during his recess study sessions.

After a year in this institution, he decided, or it was decided for him, that it was time to move on. It was not a choice that he had wanted to make, but it had been thrust upon him. During the middle of his second year some abysmal things happened which would set off the remainder of his life. He was picked up by the police on his was home from school that day. They did not handcuff him, nor were they rude in anyway, but he knew something bad had happened.

They took him to the station and sat him down with a cup of hot chocolate. They all knew they story, but were trying to find the words to relay it to Pyro.

“Pyro is it?”

“Umm… Yes?”

“How’d you get a name like that? You play with fire or something?”

“Once. My parent’s caught me playing with matches when I was three. They called me their little pyro and the name just stuck.”

“I guess that makes sense. Do you know why you’re here?”

“No. Did I do something wrong? Am I in trouble? I swear I didn’t do anything.”

“We know you didn’t son. We know.” The officer paused. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but your parents are dead.”

“They’ve been dead for a couple of years.”

“They have?”

“Uh huh. That’s why I live here now.”

“Oh. You’re adopted?”

“Don’t know, but I was brought here to live with these older people.”

The officer grabbed a picture from the desk. “This them?”

“Yup.”

The officer took a deep breath. “I guess I should have done a little more research first. Either way, you new parents, or guardians, whatever, they are the ones that passed away today.”

Pyro just stared at the officer. A stone face would have showed more emotion. He wanted to cry, but if school had taught him anything, it was that weakness was not something to go flaunting around.

“I’m sorry son.”

“Can you at least tell me what happened?” Pyro’s voice was on the verge of cracking with sobs. He had really liked his new parents and couldn’t believe that they were gone.

The officer explained the whole situation. It was a mess. Apparently some drug user, or burglar, they weren’t really sure yet, had broken into the house to grab some quick items. The plan had been simple. It was the middle of the day, and they hadn’t done their research. Pyro’s parents were at home eating lunch.

The felon’s had broken the window to Pyro’s room and let themselves in. They didn’t realize that anyone was home, so they went searching for anything that could net them a decent profit. The jewelry box was the first thing to be impounded. They cleared anything of value while scouring the rear of the house.

Dreams of a nice TV loomed in their thoughts so they made their way out to the living room. Still not realizing that anyone was there. They found what the TV and a decent stereo. Pyro’s new dad was somewhat of an audiophile. The thieves didn’t even know the value of the audio gear that they had ignored. The speakers were worth over 10,000 dollars a piece. Even the turntable was worth more than the TV, but uninformed thieves were not the best at judging quality. They would wonder who actually listened to records anymore.

As they were making their way out, with arms stuffed to the brim, the heard a noise. Both turned to see an angry, older gentleman with a large kitchen knife.

“Just put down the stuff and leave,” he said.

They dropped everything. They weren’t scared, but had been startled pretty severely. They backed slowly into the hall and just waited to see what move he would make. He lunged and connected with one of the thief’s arms. Blood started to run from the injury and pooled around his hand. The knife was dropped in the attack and the other thief punched the dad squarely in the nose. He collapsed to the floor, not dead, but unconscious. They used him as a punching bag, or kicking bag, until his body was limp and lifeless.

They heard a scream as they were just about to leave. One of the guys just wanted to get out of there. This had not been the plan at all and he was now scared of getting caught. The other intended on leaving no witnesses. Dragging his friend down the hall, he found the source of all the commotion. There was a helpless old lady curled up on the floor. She was in tears. Sobs wracked her body. She was defenseless. Shortly thereafter, she was dead as well.

Pyro listened to the officers story in a state of shock. He was sad, but mostly anger was building up in his little mind. He couldn’t believe that anyone could be so cruel. When he had been little, Pyro believed that people were good. After today that view changed. He did not know what to do, but he did have a few ideas. Nobody would be proud of him for what he was thinking, but he didn’t know that he had a choice.

It wasn’t about avenging their deaths. Well, not completely anyway. Revenge would be the start of it, but as he would learn first hand that the underbelly of society had taken hold as the status quo. There were travesties that he could not ignore. He never wanted to hear about another murder. Another rape. Another beaten wife. He was tired of all the evil that had consumed the world. No other country was any better off. He was just tired of it.

Suddenly he knew why he had the powers that he did. He was not an evil kid, and would make the world a safer place. He didn’t know how, or to what extent the destruction would be, but he knew it would end. It would end for good. There was nothing to stop him, except for the police who he was currently sitting with, and possibly his next foster family.

After talking with the state, the officer found him a place to stay for the night. He was loaded up in the car. Still trying to fight back tears, he paid attention for any opportunity that would present itself. He needed to get out of here, but wasn’t yet ready to take the blood of the innocent. Maybe the cop would need to use the restroom. Maybe he would need gas. Maybe he could reason with him, but he knew that would never work. Would the cop get hungry? Thirsty? Anything. Pyro was not going to be picky right now. He would play it cool. He would hold all the rage inside until it was time. There had to be an opening.

Pyro didn’t know how long the ride would be, but he had a feeling that it would end early as they pulled into a gas station.

Parting

Everyone met at the flagpole. They were ready to begin their journey. Ready to start their lives. Pyro placed an arm around Mary and gave her a hug.

“You did great today,” he said.

“Thanks. So did you.”

He waved everyone forward into the sun. They marched. They sang. They enjoyed life. Their day had finally come.

Mary and Pyro took the rear. They waited for a moment and said goodbye to the watchers and to this grave that they would be returning to someday. Looking at the flag brought a small tear to their eyes. He knew that he would not return here for many years and that when the time came, it would be for only one purpose.

They had not yet learned to fly, but he knew that someday they would. And so did she.